


But for them it was Tuesday

by AnUnexpectedMuffin



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Band-Aids make everything better, Carnival, Gen, Thor discovers cotton candy, adorable small children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:03:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2736986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnUnexpectedMuffin/pseuds/AnUnexpectedMuffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Avengers spend a pleasant day at a local carnival, and incidentally stop a drug trafficking ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But for them it was Tuesday

His given name was Douglas Fenkle, but he’d been called “Duct-Tape Doug” since he was eighteen years old and using Duct-Tape to pull off convenience store robberies. But now he was thirty-five, and wise and world-weary, and heading a drug trafficking ring from his dart-game booth at Hailey’s Carnival.

And the best thing? _None_ of the police officers who’d come sniffing around had cracked his system.

See, the cocaine came into the Carnival in the backpacks of over a dozen different stooges, who all went to different attractions and took different amounts of time, but who all, without fail, went to Madame Midnight’s fortune telling tent—and left their backpack, which was picked up by one of Duct-Tape’s men and taken to the unused storehouse in the haunted fun-house. From there, it was distributed locally by Duct-Tape at his booth (sewn into the bellies of the plush prizes) and by his cousin Curtis at the rollercoaster (strapped neatly under certain seats), or shipped out to other cities in the porcelain unicorns Big Bill sculpted and sold from his booth. 

The manager didn’t have a clue this was going on, of course, but his son did, because Duct-Tape paid him hush money. Of course he took the hush money from the elderly cotton candy sellers on the midway, but they were too scared to complain so it all worked out—Hubert Horatio II even overruled his father and refused to let the police search the family carnival! Duct-Tape had it made.

So then, of course, it all fell to pieces.

It started, as so many things often do, with Tony Stark. Or perhaps more accurately, it started, as so many world-shaking events often do, with Tony Stark having an idea (do bare in mind that Iron Man, arc reactor technology, and Bruce Banner taking ballet _also_ started with Tony Stark having an idea), and the idea was this: Hailey’s Carnival was in town, the Avengers were not doing anything on Tuesday, why don’t we all go?

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Pepper had asked, because she was sensible and remembered the last time the Avengers had tried to do something fun together. Going as a group to the world’s largest magnet exposition when it came to New York might admittedly have gone better if Steve hadn’t been encouraged to bring Bucky, but then, how was Tony to know the centerpiece of the exhibit would be the world’s largest working magnet? And it _had_ allowed Bucky an inescapable chance to make friends. And Wolverine and Magneto were both perfectly nice people!

Steve’s response had been equally dubious. To Tony’s suggestion that they needed to air the super soldier because, “Capsicle here needs to get out more,” Steve had protested that he _did_ get out.

Six separate people had fixed him with skeptical looks.

“Steve,” Sam Wilson had said, “last time you “got out” it was to take Bucky to the grocery store, and you both had a crisis of faith in the peanut butter aisle and we had to send Natasha to come get you.”

“I just don’t see the point of extra crunchy!”

“More crunch?” Bucky’d offered tentatively.

Steve had not looked reassured.

Which was in the end evidence that they did need to get out more, and why the Avengers, in plainclothes and devoid of most of their heavy weaponry, could be found on a bright sunny Tuesday strolling through the Carnival.

“Please,” Coulson had said as he passed out tickets, “try not to end up on the five o’clock news.”

“I wish to sample this delicacy known as funnel cake,” announced Thor. “Will you accompany me, Jane?”

“Not that I hold out much hope,” Coulson sighed. “I’m going to go…eat a funnel cake.”

If Willie, Duct-Tape’s man at the gate, had realized who was walking past him, and warned Duct-Tape, things…probably wouldn’t have gone any differently. The Avengers weren’t, after all, _trying_ to bust a drug ring.

It was just everyone’s bad luck that Steve and Bucky had fond memories of the little elderly lady in their old neighborhood who did tarot readings from her sitting room, so they and Sam decided to visit Madame Midnight. Who’s real name was Sharon Snyder, and who didn’t actually have a shred of psychic ability, but she was still really nice and (since Tuesday isn’t really a big day for crowds) kindly taught Sam how to read a tarot deck.

While they were shuffling, a weedy looking teenage boy came in, walked around nervously looking at Madame Midnight’s psychic paraphernalia, then dropped his backpack behind a curtain draped table and left.

Steve grabbed the bag and ran after him.

“He seemed awfully frightened by my returning it,” Steve said, frowning. “What does that mean?” he added, sitting down.

“Uh…you do not realize the maelstrom swirling around you,” Sharon said. Noticing Steve’s frown, she grinned a bit self-consciously. “I’m, ah, using the natural disaster themed deck, see?” she said, flipping over another card to reveal an impressive depiction of a dust storm.

“I swear, people are compelled to forget their bags in here,” she added, “but the manager’s son won’t let me turn the lights up or post a sign.”

In the hour Sharon spent teaching Sam the secrets of the inner eye three more people would have forgotten their bags if it weren’t for Steve.

“So where now?” Bucky asked as they left, now carrying a bag with two tarot decks and a classy crystal ball (“They make great paperweights,” Sharon had said cheerfully).

“Well, we could see what Clint and Natasha are up to,” Sam suggested.

What Clint and Natasha were up to was cleaning up at the carnival games.

“They need to make these booths more sturdy,” Clint said thoughtfully, as the man running the archery booth gestured to them to wait a moment and walked around the back, looking for Clint’s arrow, “you can get some serious speed out of these things.” He leaned on the counter and ran an appraising eye over the prizes.

“No more stuffed animals,” Natasha said.

“Aw, Nat!”

“Get me the goldfish?”

“You know it’ll probably die before we get it home, right?”

“Then it will die free,” she said as Clint pointed to the goldfish.

“I don’t see what you have against giant plush alien heads,” Clint sighed, turning around, plastic baggie in hand. But Natasha wasn’t really listening. She was looking across the way, at a little girl pointing at a giant purple teddy bear, one hand fisted in her mother’s skirt. Her sunflower patterned dress was clean but just a bit too small and distinctly threadbare, and as the two assassins watched her mother bent down to say something and the little girl lowered her hand. Then she smiled brightly at her mother and took her hand proper, letting herself be pulled away.

Clint leaned in. “Are we going to be good fairies?” he asked, and got a glare in response. But then Natasha nodded in the girl’s direction.

“Go detain them while I get the bear,” she said.

Clint was lucky—little sunflower patterned dress tripped just as he came up behind them, so it wasn’t suspicious for a concerned passerby to stop and help her up.

“All in one piece?” he asked as she sniffled, more from shock than anything else. She was—her little knee had one bruise but that was it. “Will a Band-Aid make it better?” Clint asked Mom, sitting her down on a picnic table and digging in Natasha’s messenger bag, “I have Avengers Band-Aids,”

“Daisy?” Mom asked.

Daisy nodded bravely.

“Ok, which Avenger do you want?”

Apparently she was shy, because Daisy hid her head in Mom’s side. Then she peeked out and poked the picture of Black Widow on the box.

“You like Black Widow?” Clint asked, fighting a grin.

Another nod.

“She’s my favorite too, you know that?” Clint asked, applying the Band-Aid with proper ceremony. “Isn’t that right, Nat?”

Natasha had materialized in front of them, two gigantic purple teddy bears in tow. She rolled her eyes at him, and then proffered one of the bears.

“I accidentally won two. Do you want one?”

“I think I’ve got enough,” Clint said. He turned to Daisy. “Nat has one teddy bear too many, would you like one?”

Her eyes went _huge._

“Thing’s bigger than she is,” Clint said happily as Daisy and her mom walked away, Daisy clutching the bear tightly and her mom looking very thoughtful.

“The man behind the counter was very reluctant to give me both bears,” Natasha said, neatly snipping the tag off the bear and transferring it to a Ziploc bag. “ Luckily he touched the tag on this one when he handed it to me. We should run his fingerprints when we get home.”

“Oh, come on Nat, I’m sure it’s nothing. Booth was probably rigged.”

In a dart-throwing booth behind them, Duct-Tape Doug was pacing, worried, barking orders to his enforcer over the phone.

“No man, she won _both_ of them, and insisted…well what was I supposed to do? Refuse? She’d have called security and that Agent Hendrickson in narcotics woulda noticed—no, you have to go and, and convince her to give it back. _Quietly_! Yeah, some little redhead. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?” And he hung up, sweating.

And off in the vendor’s booths, Big Bill was frantically trying to clean up the entire shelf of unicorn statues ( _cocaine-filled_ unicorn statues) that had shattered when a plastic arrow slammed into them.

Tony Stark, meanwhile, was completely unaware of the events he had unwittingly set in motion, and was instead trying to convince Bruce to ride the rollercoasters with him.

Bruce thought this was _almost_ as bad an idea as buying Bucky souvenir magnets for his arm, and they were standing in line arguing about it.

“Oh, come on, what’s the worst that could happen?” Tony wheedled.

“The entire carnival gets destroyed by the Hulk,” Bruce answered, “because I don’t like rollercoasters.” Then, because they had now reached the front of the line, he pushed Tony into an open seat, handed the attendant a ticket, and walked briskly away towards the roasted peanuts.

Bruce had studied intensively under Pepper in the art of Tony wrangling.

Five carts down from the roasted peanuts, Big Bill was desperately handing three Ziploc bags of cocaine to Matt.

“You have powdered sugar in your cart! Just—just pretend it’s powdered sugar and hide it for me!”

But Bruce wasn’t interested in snow cones or funnel cakes, and managed to buy two bags of sugared peanuts without noticing anything amiss. Tony found him sitting on a picnic table and took the bag Bruce offered him distractedly, his attention on a plain plastic case.

“What’s that?’ Bruce asked him.

“I don’t know. It was strapped underneath the seat.” He turned it over a couple times, then found a latch and pried it open.

The case was filled with fine white powder.

Bruce and Tony looked at each other, and groaned. Then Bruce dipped one finger in, tasted it, grimaced and spat.

“It’s _not_ powdered sugar,” he announced.

“It most certainly isn’t,” Coulson said when they tracked him down by the cotton candy. “This is high grade cocaine. Where’d you find it?”

“Strapped under the rollercoaster,” Tony said, offering Coulson some of his peanuts and looking around, “Hey, where’s Thor? I thought he was getting a funnel cake.”

“He _was_ ,” Coulson sighed. “But then he found one of those “test your strength” things… and Darcy thought it would be cool if he tried it…and the weight went right off scale and took the bell with it…and now he’s comforting the cotton candy sellers.”

“The…cotton candy sellers?”

“I imagine having a customer drop dead from a flying projectile while he’s in the process of getting his change back could be considered discomforting.”

“Son of Coul!” Thor boomed behind them, causing the three men to turn around—and then stare, for Thor stood before them with six bags of cotton candy. “I have comforted the purveyors of this delicious confection. I did not know you Midgardians had learned to capture and season the clouds!” he added, taking a large bite, “It even colors the tongue!”

“And they aren’t going to press charges?” Coulson asked hopefully.

“Nay. The kindly couple seemed relieved by the accident, and told me that the man had been robbing them.”

“Robbing? You mean like at gunpoint?” Bruce asked.

“No, friend Bruce, they said it was extortion.” And Thor plopped down on a bench that creaked worryingly under his weight, redistributing his many bags of cotton candy.

“Extortion, high grade cocaine, what’s going _on_ at this carnival?” Coulson asked.

Tony, Bruce, Thor, Darcy and Jane (both _also_ guiltily eating bags of cotton candy) all shrugged. Then Thor sat up with a start.

“I had almost forgotten, Son of Coul! For you!” He announced, and he handed over a still-hot funnel cake.

Coulson sighed wearily, but there was undeniable fondness in his eyes as he said, “Thank you, Thor.”

Then he took a careful bite.

Then he frowned thoughtfully, and spat it out.

“Thor…” Coulson said slowly, “Where did you buy this from?”

 

“W—what do you mean, you used the spare powdered sugar in the plastic bags?” Matt asked his kid brother, “There isn’t any spare—oh no.”

 

“Just once,” Clint Barton said sadly, tightening the shoelaces he was hogtying the third unknown assailant with, “just _once_ , I’d like to go to a fun house, or a haunted house, and _not_ get attacked. Wouldn’t you Nat? Nat?”

“The fake skeleton was obscuring a door to a storeroom,” called Natasha from inside said storeroom, “and it’s full of drugs and unmarked bills. As is this teddy bear, which is probably why they were after me.”

Clint sighed, and patted the plastic skeleton on the head.

“Some of them are in backpacks,” Natasha added, poking her head out the door, “Go and call Coulson, this looks like it could be pretty big.”

 

“I cannot thank you enough,” Agent Hendrickson said two hours later, shaking Coulson’s hand as his men handcuffed a hysterical Duct-Tape Doug and took a statement from Hubert Horatio II, who had easily been persuaded to talk in exchange for a reduced sentence (Steve and Bucky standing behind the arresting officer and glaring might admittedly have contributed to his decision), “We could never have gotten past Hubert Horatio’s kid without your help.”

The Avengers watched him get into his squad car and drive away. As the flashing lights from the police faded and were replaced by the flashing lights from a nearby merry-go-round, Sam spoke.

“What exactly did we do?” he asked.

 

                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
